Card makers punt Nvidia 6600 DDR 2 boards

Albatron has announced a pair of 512MB Nvidia GeForce 6600-series graphics cards, the 6600 512 and the 6600LE 512, both fitted with dual-channel DDR 2 SDRAM.

Separately, Club 3D this week began shipping its own dual-channel DDR 2-equipped GeForce 6600 card, but this time with 256MB of memory.

Both Albatron's boards contain cores clocked to 350MHz. The memory is regular DDR 2 SDRAM clocked to an effective 533MHz and connected across a 128-bit bus. Video output comes courtesy of D-Sub and DVI ports. In addition, 6600 512 buyers will get an HDTV cable with S-Video and AV connectors on the end.

The Club 3D 6600 DDR2 PCIe's core is clocked to 300MHz, the memory to an effective 600MHz, and it's SLI-ready. The board has dual-monitor support, with TV out and HDTV out. The board also has D-Sub and DVI ports.

The vendor said it is bundling the full version of Colin McRae 2005, along with Cyberlink PowerCinema 4, PowerProducer 3, PowerDirector 3.2, PowerDVD 6 and Media show 3.

The 6600 DDR2 PCIe will retail for the equivalent of $100-150, Club 3D said, and is available now. Albatron did not provide specific pricing information, despite claiming that its 512MB card will cost punters about the same as "equivalent" 256MB boards. The board will ship at the end of December, a company spokesman said. ®